Business booming for man making championship belts out of his Dighton home

Thursday

Jul 24, 2014 at 11:25 PMAug 8, 2014 at 7:47 AM

Greg Sullivan Herald News Staff Reporter

DIGHTON — Mike Nicolau carefully opened the package, gazed at the plates and realized he had become a main eventer.

The plates were for World Wrestling Entertainment’s new Intercontinental Championship belt. They had been designed by Dave Millican of Toney, Ala., considered the best of the best in the niche industry of making championship belts. Millican had gained enough trust and respect for Nicolau’s work to sub-contract the completion of the Intercontinental Championship belt work to the 36-year-old graphic artist from North Dighton.

More than a graphic artist and leather craftsman, Nicolau is a longtime, passionate professional wrestling fan. As a boy in Fall River, he and neighborhood pals pretended to be then-WWF stars, with Nicolau creating championship belts out of cardboard and aluminum for them to compete for. Back then, in the late 1980s, he was a big fan of the Intercontinental (IC) Championship, the belt and men like Macho Man Randy Savage and The Honky Tonk Man, who wore the strap. So when the plates arrived at his home in late spring of 2013, it was a magic moment.

“When I laid the plates on my workbench for the first time, I had to take a step back and soak in the moment,” said Nicolau, a former graphic artist at The Herald News. “Seven years of dedication and hard work finally paid off. I knew it could be my only opportunity to turn my childhood cardboard dreams into a reality, so I did all I could to make sure it came out perfect.”

The considerable IC finish work included crafting and dying the leather strap, attaching and painting the plates, and attaching the snaps. Nicolau was even responsible for shipping the finished product to Vince McMahon’s WWE.

Millican said Nicolau was the unquestioned man for the job. In a business that sees its fair share of back-stabbing, Milican said, Nicolau stands tall.

“Skill level and integrity. Mike’s got both in abundance,” Millican said. “Even prior to sending him the Intercontinental belt, Mike had proven himself in a number of ways. Integrity-wise he had proved himself. He had helped me out and this was a reward for him.”

The passion for belt-making was reborn in 2006 when Nicolau, then living in Fall River, started designing belts simply because he enjoyed it. Enjoyed, though, may not be a strong enough word. “It was like an addiction,” Nicolau said. “I couldn’t stop.”

When he started posting some of his work online on wrestling belt message boards — yes, such things exist — the feedback was positive. Belt companies started requesting his designs. His reputation grew. After a couple of years, Nicolau decided it was time to cut out the middle men. He started teaching himself how to craft leather. He learned where to have the actual plates made. He learned how to cut and grind metal bolts. How to paint the plates. Via research, imitation and trial and error, he became very adept at crafting his own championship belts.

Nicolau had desired to work with Millican, and with Reggie Parks and Rico Mann, the other two big names in the championship belt field. He long hesitated to reach out to them. Finally, at the urging of his wife, Kelly, Nicolau emailed Millican.

“I told him how much I admired his work and how I’d love to work with him in the future,” Nicolau said. “He said he was a fan of my stuff, and that, maybe, possibly, someday, there might be an opportunity to team up. I was overjoyed. But the pessimist in me chalked it up to him just being nice and I continued doing my thing, which, at that point, was very much a part-time gig/hobby.”

But Millican was sincere. He corresponded with Nicolau, praised his skill and then began to send work to the up-and-comer from New England. Nicolau’s performance finally earned him the big job, the Intercontinental Championship. He did the job late last spring, with the finished belt debuting on national television on June 28, 2013.

“I know the word surreal is often misused, but it was a surreal experience seeing it on TV for the first time,” Nicolau said. “I gathered the family around the tube and we all watched it together.

“I kept waiting for it to explode or something, but it got through the segment in one piece despite it being dropped and rolled around on by two rather large and sweaty grapplers.”

Father of Ella, 9, and a Nolan, 5, Nicolau, a graduate of Apponequet Regional High School, has gone fulltime with his belt-making. He estimates he logs about 60 hours per week running his home-based MN Championship Belts. His work is a mixture of repairing, refurbishing and completing belts, and of building them from scratch (except for the outsourced metal etching) for customers all his own. He does work for companies and for private collectors.

At the urging of Millican, Nicolau has established his own distinct style for tooling leather and no longer tries to copy the style of Millican and the other top dogs.

Nicolau’s customer list (in collaboration with Millican) includes WWE, 2K Sports, and Bellator MMA. As the interview for this story was being done, Nicolau was awaiting the arrival of seven belts from NXT, the minor league/feeder organization for WWE.

The championship belt-making industry has expanded well beyond wrestling, boxing and mixed martial arts. Millican has crafted belts for rock and roll legends Madonna and Kiss.

Nicolau, too, has broken through the limits of sports and sports entertainment. Last spring he crafted a belt for retiring Raytheon Corp. CEO William H. Swanson. The design represented Swanson’s dedication to Raytheon Six Sigma (R6s) the corporation’s “disciplined, knowledge-based” approach to operating its business.

Still aboard at Raytheon as chairman of the Board of Directors, Swanson has the belt, mounted in a case, displayed prominently in his office.

“Receiving this champion’s belt truly represents my commitment,” he said. “It was the perfect gift as it is well made, distinctive and everyone notices it when they enter my office.”

There have been some terrific perks for a longtime wrestling fan like Nicolau. Last spring, at Millican’s invitation, he traveled to Las Vegas for the annual Cauliflower Alley Club reunion where he met many pro wrestling legends. He’s also spent quality time talking to, among others, Ric Flair and Terry Funk, two wrestling hall of famers. He attended Bruno Sammartino’s induction into the WWE Hall of Fame at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

More important, the business has allowed him to spend more time at home, to get his children on and off the school bus, He does much of his belt work while they are at school or asleep.

Nicolau said one of his custom-made belts, zinc plated in 24k silver or nickel, costs in the $1,000 to $1,500 range. The price can climb for more ornate creations.

“So while I’m certainly not getting rich from this, it is nice to be able to do something I love and still be able to tend to all my fatherly duties at home,” Nicolau said. “In five to 10 years, I’d like to be in a position where I’m regularly working on high-profile belt projects and making a comfortable living.”

“Mike will take this and run with it,” Millican, 47, said. “In five years I don’t think I’ll be ready to go anywhere, but I see Mike on a much bigger stage helping me. Mike will go as far as he wants to.”